Day 38: Tsidilamolomo to Mafikeng

With a tar road now under my wheels again I had decided to push on all the way to Mafikeng. Damn it was a long ride. I cycled through a handful of small towns or villiages all not listed in my map book. I saw plenty of cattle, goats, sheep, donkeys and chickens just doing their thing all around the place. Life in this part of the country was definitely more rural.

The friendly Tsidilamolomo police.

You take that centre stage Mr Telephone pole.

The road was pretty much straight the whole way with a few minor inclines and I found myself about 50kms later in the small town of Makgobistad. I stopped at the local sasol to have some lunch. I ended up having a lovely conversation with the ladies who worked there. Was nice to have someone to talk too while resting. They even gave me a free vitamin water for the road. Thanks ladies. I also asked about the distance to Mafikeng as my map book seemed a bit off. They said 70kms. No fokken ways! I wasn’t even halfway. Turns out they were wrong. It was only 60kms.

Lovely service and lovely smiles.

Moooove along now.

The vast open flatness.

Holy moly that's vast and flat.

So many miles of vast open veld and roads with crossing cattle later I slowy made my way to Mafikeng. At first I thought I was in Mafikeng with all the houses I was riding past but that turned out to be some section of Mbatho I think. The sun was starting to go down and I was really starting to feel tired. Part of me even thought about just stopping at one of these houses to ask for a place to pitch my tent but I was determined to just get to Mafikeng without having to have any extra distance to do tomorrow. So I eventually entered Mafikeng. Man this city was busy. I took it slow making my way into the main part before finding the police station. I met a friendly police officer who had just come off duty I think and we ended up talking. I told him I was looking for a place to camp in the back somewhere. He helped me out by taking me to the captain who said it was okay and showed me to the back parking lot where I could pitch my tent. My day was done. All I wanted to do was lie down. Todays ride of 110kms had totally drained me seeing as I had been riding much less in the last week but I was here and I would rest.

At the back in the Mafikeng police parking lot.

I was irritated to find out that one of the bottles of tube sludge I was carrying had spilt its contents in the top section of the pannier bag where I had kept all my other bike related tools. Luckily it didn’t spill out of this compartment into the main one. There was nothing left for me to do but just clean everything as best I could. What a ball-ache as all I wanted to do was just rest. Once the cleaning was done I went online to look for places to stay in Botswana as I had now decided I would cross over the next day. I figured, why not. It will be cool to get a few more stamps in my passport and actually see some of the country. Plus the road would take me past Gaborone before I headed back into South Africa. This new route would follow the border much better than going through to Zeerust through to Rustenburg then up as initially planned. I was happy to say that my plans had changed again.

Distance 110kms